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Warren Ruda / The Citizens' Voice
WBS Penguins rookie winger Bobby Farnham is making a career out of annoying the competition.

WILKES-BARRE - He's less than two months into his rookie season, and already Bobby Farnham's face is a mess.

The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins winger has nicks, cuts and scrapes opened by sticks, elbows and fists that make a simple task like shaving difficult.

They say chicks dig scars, but that's not always the case in Farnham's experience.

"My mom thinks it's terrible," he said with a laugh.

The cuts and bruises are a small price to pay, of course, if Farnham reaches his ultimate goal. He's not trying to win the Miss America pageant. He's trying to make it to the NHL, and his preferred style of play just might get him there.

Farnham is a rat. There are euphemisms for the role he fills - agitator, energy player, shift disturber - but the reality is he's a rat, and the hockey world is in a golden age for rats.

Twenty years ago, the NHL's penalty minute leaders were heavyweight enforcers. Marty McSorley, Gino Odjick, Tie Domi and Bob Probert were in the top 10.

Last year, the top 10 was filled with rats, from Columbus' Derek Dorsett and Philadelphia's Zac Rinaldo to Ottawa's Zenon Konopka and Dallas' Steve Ott.

Why is that? Some in hockey's old school will say it's because the instigator rule has created an environment where agitators can run amok without fear of retribution. If an enforcer approaches, a rat can simply turtle and let the zebras sort it all out.

Farnham has another theory, though. He thinks it has to do with the increased speed of the game in the last decade or so.

"Ever since the NHL changed the game in the 2004-05 season, the agitator role, the guys who can skate and fly around and hit and stuff like that, I think there's a bigger role for them," he said. "I think that's what you've seen nowadays in the NHL and the AHL."

Penguins coach John Hynes agrees. He's thrilled to have a player like Farnham available when he writes out his lineup card.

"It's a little bit of the personality we would like as a team. It's what we want as a coaching staff," he said. "It's a tough player to play against. That's what Bobby Farnham is. You want guys in your lineup that are tough to play against, that will do anything to win. They'll sacrifice themselves for the team."

There's one question left to answer, however. What about the morality of the whole thing?

A rat's No. 1 goal is to get under the skin of his opponents and get them thinking about him rather than winning the game. To accomplish that goal, he'll throw borderline hits, chirp incessantly, embellish potential penalties in an effort to draw calls and engage in the occasional surreptitious stick work.

It's not exactly sportsmanlike behavior.

Farnham has some guidelines he tries to follow in that respect.

First, he tries not to cross the line from gamesmanship to dirty play.

"I don't consider myself a dirty player by any stretch," he said. "I consider myself a nuisance and annoying on the ice in a lot of ways, playing that role of quote-unquote agitator. That's what I'm here to do. You look at the best agitators and sometimes they do dirty things. It's a line you gotta flirt with. Whatever it takes to get the other team off their game."

Second, Farnham is willing to be held accountable for his actions, especially as he tries to establish his reputation in the pro game. That means fighting when an opponent objects to his methods, and that's something he's already done eight times in his first 18 games of the season.

"It's my rookie season. I think it says a lot about you if you can agitate and do all that and then try to back it up after that," he said. "I think it's important to stand in there and fight when you can. Your team enjoys that and gets energy from that. I think it's an important part of the game. It's not something where I go out there and plan on fighting every night, but with my role and the line I sometimes cross, I think it's important to be able to back it up by sometimes dropping the gloves."

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